enlisted.'
It sounded so normal. A guy marrying his high school sweetheart. Ashley looked at Jeff and frowned. She couldn't imagine a moment of it. 'You two were pretty young,' she said.
'Agreed. Too young. I'd signed up for four years. From day one I knew I'd found where I belonged. I was sent into special operations almost right away. Nicole and I had thought we would be together after boot camp, but that didn't happen. They didn't allow dependents in the places I went, so we were apart more than we were together. That was hard on both of us.'
'Marriage is difficult under the best of circumstances,' she pointed out, trying not to notice the intimacy of the night. The overhead light illuminated the table, but the rest of the kitchen was in shadows. Outside, the darkness was silent. There weren't even any cars driving by.
'Things changed,' he said. 'I had assignments that were…' He hesitated as if searching for the right word. 'Challenging. I couldn't talk about most of what I did, and what I could talk about she didn't want to hear. After a while we stopped talking.'
Ashley knew he'd seen things she couldn't even imagine. There were horrors in the world that no sane person would want to know about. But what of the people who had no choice but to live through those experiences?
'You changed,' Ashley said, making a statement rather than asking a question.
His gaze sharpened. 'That's what Nicole said.'
'Wasn't she telling the truth? How could those circumstances not change you?'
'You're right.' He stared into the distance, as if exploring his past. 'In the end she decided it was easier to leave than to make the marriage work.'
'Do you regret that?'
'No.'
She wondered if he was telling the truth. 'Accepting that a relationship isn't going to work is really tough,' she said, then nibbled on a cookie. 'I had to make that decision when I was married to Damian. When it was just the two of us, his irresponsibility didn't seem like such a big deal, but after Maggie was born, it mattered more.'
She sipped her milk. 'Some of the reason I resisted the truth was that I didn't want to admit that I'd made a wrong decision. I'd been so sure he was the one. But within the first couple of months, I knew he wasn't. Still, I tried to fix him. I tried to make him see that working hard at a good job was better than all his dreams about getting rich quick. I wanted the marriage to work.'
'Wanting isn't always enough.'
She sighed. 'I learned that one in spades. Finally I saw that the only person I could save was myself. Damian was getting involved in some scary stuff. I couldn't risk that. I had a daughter to take care of. So I left and hoped he would save himself.'
She stared at the table, then began pushing around the cookie crumbs. 'It's like with my mom. After my sister was killed, Mom just lost it. Physically she was in the room, but her mind was somewhere else. I begged her to stay with me, to get better, but I couldn't fix her or save her.'
Her throat tightened. She didn't usually allow herself to think about her past-certainly not the time when she lost both her sister and her mother, albeit in different ways.
'You're strong,' Jeff told her. 'A lot of people would have cracked under the pressure, but you survived. That's admirable. You kept your head and your sense of humor.'
His praise made her flush. 'Yeah, well, sometimes that's all I did have. At least until Maggie. Now she keeps me focused on what's important. As long as we're together we'll be fine.'
'Your daughter is very lucky. I respect you, Ashley. I know this has been a difficult time for you. I won't do anything to betray your trust in me.'
She looked up and met his steady gaze. Suddenly the room was filled with crackling electricity. She felt mesmerized and incapable of thinking for herself.
Jeff stood. Involuntarily she found herself doing the same. Her chest was tight. Her fingers began to tremble. As he moved around the table, she knew with a certainty that she couldn't explain that he was going to kiss her. Right there in the kitchen. Her heart thundered, her breath came in gasps. Anticipation filled her as her breasts seemed to swell and that secret place between her legs grew damp.
Now, she thought desperately as he got closer. The world around them faded. There was only the night and the man.
They stood less than a foot apart. She kept herself from reaching for him because she desperately wanted him to touch her first. She knew how it would be between them. An explosion. There would be nothing subtle or gentle, but she found she didn't mind that.
'Good night, Ashley,' he murmured, and then he was gone.
Her lips parted and she gasped a protest, but it was too late. As quickly as it had blossomed to life, the moment died, leaving her feeling cold and incredibly alone.
Had she been wrong? Hadn't he planned to kiss her? She would have sworn he'd been thinking about it as much as she had. Yet he'd resisted.
She wanted to run after him. She wanted to follow him and beg him to take her, to say that they didn't need promises or commitments. She would accept just the moment and expect nothing more. Instead she sank onto her chair and closed her eyes.
She was a single mother-she couldn't afford to live for moments. She had to be responsible. Whatever insanity caused her to think such thoughts about Jeff had to be ignored. Did she really plan to have sex with her boss? Talk about stupid. She was staying in the man's house.
She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to resume her studying. She had a lot of work to get through before she could go to bed, and the alarm would go off very early. But instead of numbers and text, she saw Jeff's gray eyes. She remembered the fire she'd seen burning there and wondered how she'd ever thought his eyes were cold.
Ashley hovered outside of Jeff's at-home office. She didn't like to think of herself as a person who hovered, but no other word fit. Except maybe lurked and she liked that choice even less.
It's not that she'd been avoiding him in the past couple of days. Okay, maybe she hadn't exactly been around as much, but that was mostly because the kiss-that-had-never-happened had left her feeling embarrassed and stupid. She'd been thinking warm, fuzzy thoughts about Jeff and he'd been thinking less than nothing about her.
So in an effort to keep herself from making a complete idiot of herself, not to mention losing a great job, she'd stayed out of his way. Until now, when she was hovering and trying to gather the courage to step into his office and just ask him.
Finally she simply sucked in a breath and stepped into the study. It was early-only a few minutes after seven in the morning-but Jeff was already showered and dressed for the office. He was putting several folders into his briefcase, which made her wonder how late he'd been working the previous night and did the man actually sleep?
He looked up at her and gave her a slight smile. 'Good morning. What can I do for you?'
She thought of about a dozen things, most of which had nothing to do with her reason for being in his office and everything to do with the large bed in his room and the soft feel of bare skin on sheets.
She had to clear her throat to speak. 'It's… um-' Her voice failed. What was she doing here? There was no way Jeff would even consider doing this.
'Ashley?'
She sighed. Idiot or not, she was going to have to ask. 'I spoke to Cathy, at Maggie's school. Today is their field trip to the zoo and they're short a couple of parents. I'm already going, but Cathy asked if I knew anyone else who would be interested in accompanying the kids and I thought maybe…' She pressed her lips together and stared at the carpet. 'You like Maggie and, well, it was a stupid idea.'
'Are you inviting me along?'
She nodded then forced herself to meet his gaze. What was he thinking? Please God, don't let him be able to see her uncontrollable and growing attraction. That would be too humiliating to bear.
